More Hurricane Aid for Schools Is Sent

The Department of Education has sent out the second and third of four installments of funding to reimburse school districts that took in students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The second- and third-quarter payments of so-called impact aid were each $1,000 per displaced student, Hudson LaForce, the department’s deputy assistant secretary for planning, said in an interview last week.

The department also added extra aid for the first quarter of the funding, boosting the $750 per-student payment that the districts already received to $1,000 per student, Mr. LaForce said. Still, some districts are worried that the level of federal funding for displaced students—$645 million total, or about $4,000 to $5,000 a student—will not be enough to cover their costs.

To address that, the Senate Appropriations Committee included $650 million more for hurricane-related impact aid in an emergency spending bill it approved on April 4. The House version of the emergency spending measure, which passed last month, does not include any new money for education-related hurricane relief.